Racing pigeon flies across Pacific to Canada

OTTAWA - A plucky pigeon that flew across the Pacific Ocean from Japan will be bred by a bird lover in Canada hoping its progeny will make top long-distance racers, an animal rescue official said. The pigeon was discovered tired and thin at a Canadian air force base on Vancouver Island in westernmost Canada and taken to an animal rescue centre near Comox, British Columbia where it was treated for a common bird parasite and nursed back to health. “We believe it took off from land in Japan and got confused or got caught up in a storm and got lost before eventually hopscotching its way to Canada, stopping and sleeping on freighters along the way,” the Mountainaire Avian Rescue Society’s Reg Westcott told AFP.